


The One Left Behind

by LilyFire



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Angst, Bellarke End Game, F/M, Sadness, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-05
Updated: 2017-07-06
Packaged: 2018-11-28 07:49:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 16
Words: 17,337
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11413443
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LilyFire/pseuds/LilyFire
Summary: Clarke Griffin was left behind on a smoldering earth for over six years, save her adopted daughter Madi. Her friends finally return from space, except everything is not as it seems, nor as it once was. For one, Bellamy is a taken man...





	1. Chapter 1

 

The spaceship pierced the atmosphere with a sonic boom, sending shivers radiating outwards. The deafening roar of the engines shattered the tranquility of the struggling forest, hushing the birds and overpowering the clicks of the guns as Madi hurriedly loaded the weighty metal. The ship zipped along the tree line, weaving precariously and dipping dangerously low.

 

“Into the Rover now!” Clarke shouted, her voice captured by the thundering of the rocket.

 

She threw the Rover into reverse and gunned it over fallen timber and metal shards, racing to catch the ship’s crooked path.

 

Madi clutched a pair of binoculars, screaming the directions with excitement. She had yet to see Clarke so desperate, so determined. There was starvation in her steely blue gaze that fused with fear.

 

“I lost it!” Madi cried, disappointment ebbing her rush of adrenaline.

 

“No.” it was a breathless reassurance, and Clarke slammed the brakes, throwing out an arm to protect her child, as the vehicle skidded in a half-moon.

 

Not half a minute later the ground shuddered, rupturing trees and scattering a storm of dust and debris into the choked air.

 

They waited it seemed, paralyzed, though the bunch of Clarke’s muscles, the tightness of her jacket across tense shoulders, betrayed her readiness to rush towards the crash. With the crackling of trees still plunging to the broken earth and the mushroom of debris beginning to thin, Clarke primed a shotgun and slung it over her back, tucking a smaller handgun into the holster at her hip.

 

She looked at Madi with an expression that induced tremors of fright in the girl – an Azgeda warrior possessed a warmer stare.

 

“Follow me, stay out of sight. If I give the command, shoot to kill.”

 

Madi swallowed thickly and crept behind Clarke’s unwavering strides.

 

 

Six years.

 

 

It had stretched endlessly like the enchanting ocean once had, just waves of time separated by periods of stillness. It was a silence that had threatened to consume her whole and drive her to madness in its Stygian depths.

 

She breathed into a handkerchief, the swirling filth stinging her eyes and infecting her lungs.

 

The acrid tinge of smoke grew sharper. Scraps of metal torn from the plummeting ship littered the smoldering forest floor, inciting small brushfires in the meager undergrowth.

 

Over the rise of a stony hill she saw the main wreckage – jagged and simmering.

 

As though she were stalking a threatening beast, Clarke crouched low and prowled onwards.

 

She could feel the heat of Madi’s wide-eyed stare boring into her back.

 

Coughs erupted from the destroyed ship, indecipherable shouts adding to the chaos.

 

A shrill blast exploded and Clarke flinched, covering her head and neck at the consequence of an overheated fuel blaster.

 

More shrieks and agonizing cries detonated in response.

 

Above the confusion rose a single distinguishable voice.

 

“To the tree line, now!” he commanded, the gruff and unshakeable tone ushering the muddled survivors to safety.

 

Clarke froze at its familiarity, her heart ceased to beat, her blood ceased to rush.Her breath was snatched in her throat, seized by the overwhelming grip of tears and intoxication of terror.

 

With a final groan that echoed the howl of Praimfaya, the ship exploded.

 

Fiery metal showered down like black rain, burning and shredding the woodland.

 

Sharp bits impaled the surrounding area and Clarke dove for shelter, screaming as molten steel pierced her skin.

 

It seeped through her jeans and armor with scorching claws as she scrabbled to scrape the venom off.

 

The clearing was eerily silent, the explosion inducing temporary deafness.

 

Trees and fire swam before her eyes in a blistering inferno, and her last thought was Madi.

 

 

\--

 

_She was on the Ark._

 

_With trailing fingertips she traced the ridges of the cold blue walls as her feet guided her to the old cell._

 

_She was floating, spacewalking. It was fresh, it was freedom._

 

_From the window she could see the stars, eternal and shining, pulsing over an earth that was reduced to black cinders._

 

_The destruction of her home should have tormented her, but there was a lightness in her chest and in her walk, and she waltzed to her destination._

 

_The cement walls of her former prison were chipped, rubble strewing the floor. Some of her drawings were smeared, a mere haze of naïvety._

 

_A figure was slumped against the corner, the Skaikru Guard uniform a decrepit charcoal in color._

 

_Gravity caught up to her, and Clarke was slammed into its reality. Her throat constricted, and she grasped at it, her skin feverish._

 

_She fell to her knees and crawled towards him, thick tears clogging her her vision._

 

_He had collapsed next to a rendering of her self-portrait, one hand placed over her sketched face._

 

_The screams would not come, as though hushed by Death himself._

 

_Against her will, but she had to know, she pressed her shaking hands to his body._

 

 

_Cold, like the Ark._

 

\--

 

 

She fought upwards from the dragging depths of her dream and gasped for air. The birds still weren’t singing, she noticed, and Madi loomed over her, all frizzy hair and freckles, bits of ash smudging her cheeks.

 

“I’m okay, I’m okay.”

 

She sat up and pulled the girl to her chest, hugging her close. Madi’s tears were warm on her neck, terrified sobs racking her body.

 

“Shhhh, I’m okay. I’m okay. _I give myself, to the miracle of the sea_. Say it with me honey, _I give myself, to the miracle, of the sea_.”

 

“I give myself, to the miracle, of the sea.” She quieted, and Clarke kissed her temple.

 

“I need you to go back home, and lock the doors.”

 

Madi curled her fingers around Clarke’s jacket, whimpering into her hair.

 

“It’s going to be alright honey, I promise.”

 

 

_I hope so_

 

 

“When I give you the secret knock, you let me in, okay?”

 

The girl untangled herself from the embrace and rubbed the shiny streaks from her soot stained skin.

 

Before she could turn away, Clarke clasped her hand “ai hod yu in, Natblida gada,” I love you daughter.

 

She squeezed Clarke in a brief hug, arms about her neck “ai hod yu in, I’ll be safe,” and she darted off into the woods.

 

Clarke waited, counting her breaths and calming her thudding pulse.

 

Once she was certain Madi was safely journeying home, she staggered to her feet.

 

Cupping her hands to her mouth, she shouted his name.

 

 

 

“Bellamy!”

 

 

 

It pierced the air, hot and angry.

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clarke reunites with her friends

 

_She couldn’t bear another year, another 365 days of harrowing isolation. The alarms of Becca’s faltering lab equipment blared, pleading that humans could not withstand the current radiation level. Clarke ignored its warnings, donned her suit and stumbled out the iron-clad door._

 

_Four years, and she had expected everything to simmer with a sickening warmth, yet a chill welcomed her. The ground was dry and cracked beneath her boots, like chapped lips._

 

_There were no animals to speak of, not that she had anticipated any. Vegetation struggled amidst the barren soil and the air seemed thinner._

 

_Despite enduring the silence of her imprisonment, the silence of the earth was overpowering. Its enormous presence was deadening, and it stifled her soul. She plopped down, crying in frustration when the rotted log gave way beneath her. The horizon revealed only blistering red, and she could make out the smudge of Polis in the distance._

 

_There was nothing and no one. The unfairness of it all – all the terrible sacrifices she had braved in the name of her people, the pain she had borne for their sake – to be left utterly alone and helpless._

 

_With a wail she tore off her helmet and flung it as far as she could. Rationing the food had made her weak, the hard earned muscle stripped to anemic skin and fragile bones. The helmet clunked a few feet away, rolling to a stop._

 

_Clarke screamed at it, her voice so small and insignificant._

 

_She glared up at the sky, heedless of the sun’s blinding rays. It was a ghostly gray thickened by ash, and she thought of her friends, if they had made it safely to space. If they were still alive in space. The radio weighed down her pocket like a foreboding omen._

 

 

_Emptiness. Silence._

 

 

_It was suffocating, entombing her in a sepulcher of loneliness and misery._

 

_She felt the walls closing in, dirt filling her mouth, the heavy slab of a gravestone trapping her under._

 

_She screamed, just to hear something, to cough out the dirt of the grave she could feel slowing her heart and drowning her lungs._

 

_“You left me behind! You left me!”_

 

_She tore off her protective gloves and scrabbled for rocks, flinging the offending remnants of the earth._

 

_“You left me!”_

 

_She thought of them up there, the view of the gossamer stars, drinking piss recycled water sure and eating algae salads, but at least they had each other._

 

 _At least they had_ someone _._

 

_Bellamy, his face already fading from her mind despite her damndest to remember it._

 

_She sketched them, all of them – Octavia, her mother, Raven, Kane, Monty, Jasper, Indra, Roan, Harper, even Murphy. Lexa was too painful to attempt, she broke down at the shadow of her Heda makeup, so she left it at that._

 

_Bellamy’s likeness graced numerous surfaces, some drawn in delirium, others in desperation. At first she drew him to remember what he looked like, but she was nagged by the suspicion she had never got it quite right, so she tried it, again, and again, and again, until it blurred and twisted into a pale version of the man._

 

_She clutched her head in her hands, fingers running through the short lengths. She had been forced to chop it off, beautiful blonde strands falling out as the rations shriveled to meager scraps._

 

_“I trusted you,” she spoke to the tears that kissed the parched earth, squeezing out a few more pitiful drops before her body surrendered in defeat._

 

_She wanted to die. She even tried to – a knife to the wrist, a rope in the closet, but the Will to Live out-lasted any torture of misery. The Will was primal, sparked from the collision of dust into the blazing fires of stars, and it would endure until the last woman’s bones crumbled to the same dust._

 

_She strove to conjure the image of Bellamy in her mind once more, but it was like Theseus in the labyrinth without Ariadne’s thread. Freckles, unruly brown hair, heartfelt eyes and a beaming smile – she knew these features, but couldn’t paint them together._

 

_“You did the right thing Bellamy” another dry sob escaped “you used your brain instead of your heart.”_

 

 

\--

 

 

“Clarke!”

 

She closed her eyes in bliss at the call of her name, from his lips, his voice husky but quaking in disbelief.

 

“Clarke!”

 

“I’m here!”

 

_I see you_

 

“Clarke!” the others chimed in, weary and bewildered

 

“Are you sure she was the one that screamed – ”

 

“Yes!” It was his voice again, a blend of frenzied desperation and steadfast certainty “It is her. I _know_ it is her! Clarke!”

 

She had pictured this moment in her mind every day since her imprisonment in Becca’s fortress, how she would run to them, brimming with tears and smiles. She would hug Raven first, they had come such a long way from enemies vying for Finn’s attention. Raven was the most brilliant person Clarke had ever known, and in her own rough way she was also the kindest friend. A kiss on the cheek for Monty, a tight squash of a hug for Harper. She would even hug Emori, and punch Murphy on the shoulder before embracing him as well. Echo…it had always been difficult to place her in their intimate little group, and in the mayhem of readying the ship six years ago, she had quite forgotten Echo existed at all. After nights of imagining such a scenario, Clarke had settled on a firm hand shake, clasping her hand over the other girl’s, a sincere _thank you_ as they interlocked eyes.

 

Bellamy would be last. Even the tightest embrace could never convey the full extent of her feelings. Even with six years of solitude Clarke had yet to sort through and recognize the turbulent mix of emotions, partly because she was cursed by the very real possibility of his death.

 

Their very last hug – before she raced on an impossible mission to the tower, was carved into her memory. Some nights, when the pain of isolation became unbearable, she relived that moment. Bellamy had always crumbled at the sight of her in tears, his own eyes, so full of expression, melting into concern. He held her against the tough material of his orange jumpsuit, one hand encircling her back protectively, the other stroking her thick braid. The warmth of his chest and his steady heart radiated into her own body, and she pressed her face to his neck to hide the tears. With Bellamy she could reveal her fears, share her worries, she could be _vulnerable_. She may have been the brain and he the heart, but the heart hushed reason and bestowed the courage to leap towards the impossible.

 

Clarke knew she loved Bellamy because she needed him, but was she in love with him? She had been consumed by maddening, deep, swirling love with Lexa, and it nearly killed her.  She had cared for Finn, and had fancied herself then to be in love.  Reflecting with the wisdom of pain and experience, she discovered that feeling had merely been the sweet infatuation of youth, and youth feared true powerful love and instead cloaked tender affection in its omnipotent robes.

 

_Could  she be in love with Bellamy?_

 

He had never betrayed her, and even abandoning her upon the ravaged earth was a crime justified by rationale. She had forgiven him long ago, though it never dulled the ache of loneliness.

 

Clarke’s forged scenarios of a joyous reunion dissipated into the thinning air, and she was rendered mute by the awe of her friends’ tread once more firm upon the ground. It felt nearly like a dream, and she half anticipated the world slipping into shadows as she opened her eyes to the faded walls of her bedroom.

 

“Clarke!” they were louder, the noise edging her into reality, amplifying as though the volume were being turned up.

 

Their shining white spacesuits winked through the trees, and Clarke remained still like a frightened rabbit as they plunged towards her.

 

 _Monty, Harper, Murphy, Emori, Raven, Echo, Bellamy_ – they were all accounted for, all alive.

 

 She surveyed them like a lab-coated scientist behind a glass wall. Monty’s hair had grown longer, one arm wrapped tightly around a hobbling Harper. Murphy sported a trimmed beard. Emori was smiling, a rare sight as far as Clarke could recall, tilted upwards to the sunlight. Raven limped at a rapid pace, determination steeling her gaze, a radio clutched tightly in her palms, Echo –

 

Breath drained from Clarke’s lungs.

 

Echo carried a bundle, tied to her chest in the fashion of a sling with the mark of the Ark’s nursery blankets emblazoned upon its soft fabric. Even at this distance Clarke felt rather than knew that it harbored something more precious than rare supplies. Echo braced the bulge with one hand, the other entwined with Bellamy’s.

 

The trees seemed to spin into the blue of the sky, as though she were plummeting from space. Her head pounded as her heart tried in vain to send it blood, even though the stupid organ itself wailed in anguish as the knife of agony twisted deeper and deeper. Her limbs were numb. Water thickened her vision, and Clarke thought she had smashed into the earth from free fall when she collided with something rigid and harsh.

 

But it was only Raven, her spacesuit bulky and heavy as she wrestled Clarke into a solid embrace.

 

Through the shimmer of sorrow she could discern their silhouettes, Bellamy’s Herculean form commanding center stage.

 

She buried her face into Raven’s hair, sinking into its familiar scent of tangy metal. The shock of Raven’s own tears streaming down Clarke’s neck jolted her from the gulf of woe. She clutched her tighter and listened to Raven’s hiccupping struggles as she begged for forgiveness.

 

“I forgive you Raven, you did the right thing.” Her words seemed foreign on her tongue, and betrayed no glimpse of the heartache raging beneath.

 

With an embarrassed laugh at her emotional outburst, Raven held her at arm’s length, drinking in the sight of her best friend before withdrawing to allow the others their own private moments.

 

Monty and Harper together enveloped her, and Clarke’s medical senses kicked in at the inordinate pressure Harper exerted as she leaned upon her.

 

“You’re injured!”

 

The fear in Monty’s eyes confirmed it, and Clarke swept them towards the mansion.

 

They packed into the Rover, and Clarke averted her gaze as Bellamy’s pleading eyes sought her own.

 

Raven plopped into shotgun, immediately launching into a lecture on auto maintenance.

 

“Have you even checked the oil?”

 

“Hey, all our equipment is back there.” interrupted Murphy

 

Harper’s cries of pain eclipsed Emori’s complaints, and the baby wailed.

 

Clarke’s knuckles gripped white on the steering wheel as Echo sang in a soothing voice to the whimpering child, the same lullaby Clarke sang to Madi at night to help her sleep.

 

The ride was swift, Clarke pouring all her focus into maneuvering the vehicle over the rutted terrain. She couldn’t check the rearview mirror, terrified of seeing his face.

 

She managed to avoid him as they disembarked, Monty carrying a faint Harper, Emori helping Raven disengage from the Rover.

 

With a flurry hastened by the need to treat her friend and the desire to flee, Clarke pounded the secret knock and shouted the code.

 

Madi’s eyes, frightened, shone through the silver of the door.

 

“It’s okay, my friends need help.”

 

The girl tugged open the heavy steel, all but hiding behind it as the group thundered in.

 

“Over here, the kitchen counter.”

 

“Where we cook our food, great.” Emori smacked Murphy for his sarcasm, but he only offered her an affectionate smirk.

 

“Is she going to be alright?” Monty clutched Clarke’s arm “please tell me you can save her.”

 

The wound was a jagged gash bleeding red on Harper’s abdomen.

 

“Madi, fetch towels, bandages, sheets, anything. We need to stop the bleeding. Emori, get a knife from the drawer under the fruit basket.” She paused to look at Monty, praying her gaze was firm and reassuring “we are going to cauterize the wound.”

 

Echo shifted the baby to her other side “all this fine Skaikru equipment and you still cauterize?” the disdain magnified Clarke’s urge to pounce the woman, and she gritted her teeth for a scathing retort.

 

Bellamy placed a calming hand at Echo’s waist, whispering into her ear, and Clarke winced.

 

“She’s still bleeding!”

 

“Monty! Panicking is not helping!”

 

“I have the bandages.”

 

“Someone heat the knife!”

 

“With what?”

 

“Our fancy Skaikru technology.” She resisted shooting a glare in Echo’s direction.

 

Harper sought Monty’s hand, and they shared a look that reawakened Clarke’s fresh heartache.

 

“The knife is glowing red!”

 

“Give it here. Harper, this is going to hurt like a bitch.”

 

The others flinched at Harper’s screams, and the baby began to wail.

 

Monty was on his knees at his wife’s side, hands white at her iron grip, his eyes never leaving her face.

 

The wound hissed as the flesh burned closed, and Harper slipped into blissful unconsciousness.

 

“Is she okay? Is she okay?” Monty scrambled to his feet, searching for the rise and fall of Harper’s chest.

 

“She passed out, she’s going to make it.”

 

Clarke cleaned the wound, politely pretending not to hear Monty’s sobs of relief.

 

Finished, she turned away, exhaustion tugging at her body, her heart weighed down with a fresh ache that joined her torn scars.

 

“Madi, would you please show them their rooms?”

 

 

 


	3. Chapter 3

 

_The chances of her friends returning to earth were slim at best, but with the chattering voices of fear gnawing at her mind day and night, Clarke busied herself with any task imaginable._

 

_The mansion had been scrubbed twice over, each dust particle hunted down and destroyed. Her sketches adorned the walls, floor, counters, anything smooth, haphazardly._

 

_The idea to furnish bedrooms for each of her friends was a dangerous thought, bordering on madness and threatening the sharp sting of agony, but it badgered her incessantly as she lay on the floor in sinister boredom._

 

_No windows remained, boarded up to safeguard  from Praimfaya. Yet Clarke imagined the room by the sea to be Raven’s, perhaps its lulling waves would ease the anxiety that continuously shadowed her existence._

 

_Either Becca was fond of luxury or she had amassed a large team of scientists, for the house boasted an assortment of rooms with decorations imitating various decades and centuries._

 

_Clarke scrounged for futuristic furniture, deciding on a minimalist theme for Raven’s bedroom, complete with ample workspace and tech._

 

_For Monty and Harper, she resolved to use one of the larger rooms, painting its walls pale shades matching an elaborate bedspread. When the embers from Praimfaya settled, she would draw open the curtains and tear down the screens covering the windows, for it offered a beautiful view of what once was – and might once again be – a forest._

 

_She knew Emori and Murphy less well than the others. When she pondered their tastes and styles, a prevalent thought kept appearing. Both feared never having enough, and survival primed their actions. She would ensure that they always felt they had plenty, and would never again suffer from envy. She switched their themes twice, settling hesitantly on a grand Victorian atmosphere. The bed was immense, adorned with sweeping drapes and elegant tassels. Gilded frames glittered on the walls, and with a fine brush she detailed all the trim in intricate gold paint. It was fit for a king in its opulence, and it commanded nearly four months of daily labor to complete. She was proud of it, a rare feeling that charged her will to live at the time and granted her brief contentment._

 

_For Echo she chose a smaller room, perhaps from dislike, though she convinced herself it was because the woman preferred the outdoors. It was a simple blue and white, reminiscent of ice, and she lined it with pots, awaiting the day they could be filled with seed and coaxed to bloom._

 

_Bellamy’s room she had anticipated creating from the beginning, but savoring his for last kept her hoping for each new sunrise. The task charged her with excitement, and she read through every Roman history book in Becca’s library. She colored the walls in faux marble, black streaks amidst gleaming white, shadowing it to glisten like polished rock. She uncovered a few antiquated pedestals, and hauled a bookcase clear from the opposite end of the house to his room, thronging the shelves with manuscripts. Against the wall facing the bed, she painted a mural of the forest, and framed a sketch of smiling Octavia._

 

_It had been difficult work, especially as she weakened from hunger and thirst. The projects spanned years, but it sharpened her mind and kept her moving._

 

\--

 

She thought of those dark and lonely times, fueled by madness, as she lay on her bed. Her room was the one she had sank into upon arriving, all those years ago, and sentiment tied her to its cream balance.

 

Clarke let the fortress enclosing her heart crumple, too exhausted to keep it sturdy. She begged the tears to come, to relieve her of the overflowing pain that churned inside. They too were weary, and stubbornly her face remained dry.

 

She would have to move a crib into Bellamy’s room, and the pots in Echo’s never need be filled. She wondered if she had seen a crib when she searched the house, or even if supplies for the child existed in this laboratory-mansion, destined for the end of the world and the human race.

 

The sight of Bellamy’s hand tethered to Echo’s, their baby against her breast, it clawed at Clarke’s heart until she felt she might bleed rather than weep. The grief was so powerful she saw only in shades of gray, as though the life and hope she had begrudgingly been nurturing all this time finally drained away.

 

She was supposed to be happy for him, but all she felt was emptiness.

 

Clarke wanted to surrender to the wretched tiredness, to wake up amnesiac with her friends safe in their spaceship. She would rather die, alone on earth, never knowing their fate, than wake up every day with the agony of knowing he would sleep in someone else’s arms.

 

The sting of tears pricked her eyes, but nothing came forth. Her chest heaved with dry sobs, and she suffocated in her anguish.

 

The bed dipped and his familiar scent pacified her afflicted mind. He eased her into a comforting embrace, enfolding Clarke in his strong arms, chin atop her hair as she wept into her shoulder.

 

It was as though he were hugging his sister, and Clarke feared all their actions towards each other would fade to such a pattern. She would cease to be Clarke his Partner, his Fellow Leader, and instead would be reduced to Clarke the Old Friend.

 

His own chest quaking with grief only intensified her pain. She withdrew from his touch, loneliness chilling her once more.

 

 “Clarke” his voice trembled like water and his fingertips were light on her chin, drawing her towards him. 

 

With a deep breath, as though she was preparing to plunge into the ocean, she looked up.

 

The tears finally rained down her face.

 

In his eyes she saw the crumbling of monuments, the dust of cities, and the slaying of time.

 

His shattered gaze whispered of a lost love thought long dead.

 

“I left you behind.” The words were broken

 

She shook her head “you did what you had to do Bellamy. You listened to your brain instead of your heart.”

 

Clarke placed her palm on his chest, feeling each aching pulse.

 

 _He was alive_ , gratitude seeped through the cracks of her crippled heart.

 

Bellamy’s hand covered hers, and he worshipped every contour of her face.

 

He missed her beautiful hair, how he could always identify her by the splotch of golden.  Even without her shining tresses he could still recognize her anywhere, any place. There was an invisible force of fate that drew him towards her, like a sailor to an enchanting siren.

 

He fingered the strands of her hair, and shuddered as she melted into him.

 

Her lips met the bare skin of his shoulder between his neck and shirt. It ached, the familiarity of the hug, how Clarke always hugged him, except this time the act bore the weight of regret and unspoken love.

 

Bellamy was desperate to say it, but honor and faith to Echo held him back.

 

Her eyelashes swept across his skin, her cool tears ripping him apart.

 

_I should have kissed her before I left._

 

_I should have waited_

 

_I should have stayed_

 

_I should not have left her behind._

 

 

 

Remorse haunted their ragged gasps, and as he pressed his face to her hair, he knew he would slip from his code of integrity and kiss her breathless.

 

Before he succumbed, she pulled away. Sadness welled in her pale blue eyes, and she gently kissed him on the cheek.

 

“Welcome home.”

 

 


	4. Chapter 4

 

Harper and Monty were asleep in their shared room, boots barely kicked off as they collapsed onto the bed from exhaustion. They were entwined together, and Clarke softly closes the door to give them privacy.

 

Downstairs she is greeted by the delightful smells of Murphy’s cooking, while Emori teaches Madi a game on an old Grounder chess board. Echo’s stony glare follows her as she ducks into the kitchen.

 

“I’m starved.” Bellamy forces his tone to appear light, and the others tactfully disregard the puffiness of their cheeks and redness of their tear-stained eyes.

 

Clarke sits by Madi, watching her little girl expertly move the pieces across the board.

 

“You’ve played before haven’t you?” Emori’s eyes twinkle

 

“Yep.” She chirps “I tried to teach Clarke but she couldn’t grasp it.”

 

Emori laughs and Murphy smiles from his place at the stove.

 

A faint sadness trails in Clarke’s eyes but she leans forward, elbows propped on her knees “I didn’t miss any weddings did I?”

 

“Raven prohibited us from doing so, she said you _absolutely_ had to be there.”

 

“You’re damn right I did!” Raven limps over, glowering at Bellamy as he pulls out a chair for her.

 

“You’re welcome.” He grumbles affectionately

 

“I _know_ Harper has been planning hers,” Raven offers, taking a swig from Clarke’s secret stash of liquor.

 

“Hey! I hid that!”

 

“Please Clarke,” the mechanic rolls her eyes “I know you well enough.”

 

She passes her the bottle and uses Clarke’s temporary ceasefire of questions to continue “Anyway, she described to me in vivid detail her master plans, and I don’t know where Harper thinks we are going to find so many damn flowers. Personally I think Emori’s is much more realistic.”

 

The blonde turns towards the new subject, grinning at Emori’s crimson blush. “Let’s hear your ‘master plans’”

 

“A small ceremony, by the ocean, and a new dress.”

 

Murphy sets down the triad of dinner plates he was balancing, and pecks her on the cheek.

 

“A dress huh?”

 

“O shut up!”

 

They all laugh and dig into the food, bitter greens harvested from Clarke and Madi’s tenuous garden accompanied by the Ark’s signature ‘powder-packaged steak.’

 

“hmmmmm,” Raven closes her eyes in bliss “much better than the algae. We only ate this stuff on special occasions.”

 

Madi pokes the greens hesitantly with a fork before scrunching her nose and inhaling a bite. Her eyes go wide and she beams at Murphy.

 

“Much better than Clarke’s cooking I take it.”

 

The girl nods vigorously, shoving in another mouthful.

 

“Fine then, Murphy can be head chef.”

 

They chime in with Aye-ayes! And he tries to hide his blush of pride.

 

After the dishes are cleared, the baby, asleep on the sofa, stirs.

 

“I’ll get her.” Bellamy stands, and Clarke can see the sigh of relief in Echo’s shoulders.

 

He scoops up the child, cushioning its head against his bicep, supporting it against his firm chest. The baby snuggles closer emitting faint coos.

 

Echo rummages in a bag at the base of the sofa, and with swift efficiency readies the formula.

 

Bellamy’s eyes glow and his smile beams as he cradles the child, reveling in the way her tiny hands grasp for the bottle.

 

She is so small in his embrace, and the chasm in Clarke’s chest splits open wider, shaking her foundations.

 

She trembles as she approaches the pair, powerless to avert her gaze, yet unable to bear the sight.

 

The little rosebud mouth suckles on the bottle, and Clarke can feel the warm bliss emanating from the baby’s curling toes, her downy hair, and pink skin.

 

Her own womb yearns to cherish such a gift, and she touches the blankets. She is close enough to Bellamy to count the freckles that sparkle on his cheeks.

 

“May I hold her?”

 

Echo shifts behind her, tensed as a tigress leaping to protect her cub.

 

The baby is sound in her arms, grounding her to the present, tying her to the earth. Awe blossoms in her body, engulfing her heart and sprouting seeds of hope and wonder. She feels feather-light and _glowing_ , amazement shining through every pore.

 

Saving the human race had always been about cut-throat struggle, clawing through life only by blood, sweat, and tears. It was nothing but pain and heartache and they had faced failure every step of the wretched way.

 

But the babe is strong in her embrace, its delicate figure nurturing potential and possibility.  In her Clarke feels the warmth of the sun, the softness of the grass, the coolness of the fresh rain. She hears the jubilant laughter of children and the chorus of a thousand voices to music. Through her eyes Clarke was reborn to the grace of humanity, awash in all of its kindness and tenderness.

 

“She is so beautiful Bellamy.” It is a whisper, brimming with joy, speckles of remorse shadowing its depths.

 

Bellamy steps nearer, their toes a breath away.

 

“Tell Harper and Monty that.”

 

The realization is sudden, like a gulp of air, and Clarke claps a hand to her mouth.

 

“She is their baby?”

 

At his nod her chest quakes, and relief storms the dam encasing her heart.

 

“She is their baby.” Her breaths are tremulous, and she wants to cry “My God she is so beautiful.”

 

The baby reaches for the neckline of her shirt, wrapping five perfect little digits against her heart, nestling deeper into her bosom. Sweet tears bless the child’s silken skin as Clarke kisses the smooth little forehead.

 

Regretfully she places her back in Bellamy’s arms, and she loves him enough to see that his own shimmering gaze mirrors her baffling convergence of sorrow and resurrection.

 

 

 

 


	5. Chapter 5

 

The splash of water on tile hums from the bathroom, lending a melodic background to the tranquility Bellamy experiences while exploring his new room. He runs his fingertips along the walls, the bump of the black splotches revealing the marble quality is mere imitation. Books, his old favorites are shelved next to historic trinkets. He chooses one, _The Odyssey_ , and thumbs through its pages, inhaling the crisp, woody scent.

 

Clarke’s mural is magnetic, and it beckons him to step into its leafy boughs. Her painted forest is reminiscent of the wonder the 100 felt when they first stepped upon earth. She captured the light filtering amidst the branches, the harmonized shades of green and brown, and the rich taste of it all. It glorified the land as it once was, but it would be another hundred years before the cinders of Praimfaya allowed such flourishing.

 

Bellamy craves to walk into that forest, to reappear in the simpler times. Despite its series of mad struggles and endless trepidation, there had existed a bond amongst Skaikru and a few trusted Grounder clans. He misses the leadership, the disorderly mess he proudly called family. He misses the scent of rain, Octavia’s stubbornness, and Clarke’s friendship.

 

The hand of fate turns him towards the next wall, and his knees weaken at the portrait of Octavia. She is emblazoned in her battle armor, the Grounder war paint highlighting the fierceness of her eyes. The canvas is rough to the touch, the charcoal permanent.

 

_My sister, my responsibility._

 

The fraternal loyalty heats his blood and tenses his muscles, he is eager to sprint out the door, to haul ass to Polis and dig his sister out of the rubble with his bare hands. His jaw is fixed, a fire in his eyes that matches his sister’s fierceness. He is determined –

 

“Bellamy?”

 

He jumps at Echo’s mild touch.

 

Her gaze flickers to the image “We will get them out.”

 

Bellamy remains fixated, a hundred thoughts racing through his mind.

 

“Bellamy.” Echo moves in front of him, forcing his stare to her.

 

She is wearing a towel, hair still damp from the refreshing shower. The stress of space had aged her slightly, a few more lines around her eyes, some tugging the corners of her lips. Echo had found it hardest to adjust, the great rollicking of the ship, the vastness. The Grounders considered the stars to be spirits of the Commanders, mystical beings to be worshipped from afar. The Ascension into space shattered that spirituality, shaking the core of Echo’s beliefs and casting her into disillusionment.

 

With most of the others split in their intimate pairs, or in Raven’s case, a ceaseless work affair with technology, Echo was bitten by frigid loneliness.

 

Inexperienced with the machinery of the ship, she floated useless through the slipping seasons. There was a kinship with Bellamy, born from suffering and emptiness.

 

 

_She had wandered the length of the ship twice, lingering at doors to peer at the others’ busyness. Raven, hidden behind a welding mask, sawed metal with a shrieking blade that spit sparks. Echo shrunk from the noise, and resumed her walk._

 

_Bellamy was frozen in his usual spot, breath staining the glass of the largest window, palms pressed against it, as he stared unblinking at the dying Earth. The radio was always by his side, though if he ever heard anything, he had never bothered to share it._

 

_He heard her shuffling tread and peeled himself from his post._

 

_“What do you want?”_

 

_There was a blinding pain like the fracturing of earthquakes or the rupture of a volcano that intensified his gaze._

 

_His words stung, though Echo would never admit it. Pride was both virtue and vice of Azgeda._

 

_“It’s been a year and a half.”_

 

_“I know Echo.” His tone lowered into irritation_

 

_Her shoulder brushed against his “You should do something else.”_

 

_“Like what?”_

 

_She offered a small shrug “This can’t feel good.”_

 

_He looked at her then, and in his gaze she was sucked into the catastrophes that tormented the Earth._

 

 

 

_“Then make me feel something else.”_

 

 

_Bellamy turned his body slightly, so they were chest to chest. Her breathing picked up, but she was consumed by his gaze._

 

 

_Eyes open, she pressed her mouth to his._

 

 

\--

 

“We need to talk about Clarke.” She spits out the other woman’s name like it was poison on the tongue.

 

With a sigh Bellamy plants himself on the bed, tugging off his worn boots. “What is there to talk about?”

 

Echo stands in front of him, rooted between his legs, chin raised defiantly. “I saw the way you looked at her then, I see the way you look at her now.”

 

“That’s what this is about? Jealousy?” the infamous Bellamy Blake smirk disarms her vexation.

 

He places his hands on her hips and draws her closer, tilting his head back to meet her thorny glare.

 

“Echo, I picked you didn’t I? I _still_ pick you.”

 

He moves the towel and kisses her hipbone, a devilish glint in his eyes.

 

She shudders and drops the towel, pushing him against the mattress.

 

 


	6. Chapter 6

 

Somber morning light sifts through the curtains, throwing gray shadows across the silent room.

 

Bellamy sits up, running a hand through his tangled hair. Echo slumbers next to him, and he pulls the comforter to cover her naked back.

 

Every morning for the past five years he awoke with her at his side. He brushes her unclouded skin with his knuckles, her Grounder paint long forgotten. A telltale violet hickey teases her neck, and his own thrums in response.

 

He tightens the curtains so the weak scowl of the sun doesn’t disturb her dreams, and he steps into the shower.

 

Warm.

 

He turns the nob to scalding.

 

The water streams in rivulets down his neck and chest, cleansing him of the dirt and grime that seemed so permanent.

 

His skin is raw and red in the mirror as he wipes away the condensation that fogs its glimmering surface.

 

He still wears his hair long and boyishly curly, despite hovering on the precipice of his 30s. He thinks back to the time when history books swore man lived only to thirty five,

and grimaces at the irony of it all as it comes full circle.

 

The clothes in the dresser fit well, the cotton shirt taut against his chest. Clarke’s frame still bore traces of starvation, her shoulder blades sharp as he held her in his arms. The garden on the Ark thrived quickly, and it is like a punch in the throat to know that she had suffered.

 

Echo tosses in her sleep, and he clicks the door close.

 

The house was still shrouded in vestiges of night, and he coaxes a candle to wavering flame. Hallways and rooms form a labyrinthine maze, and with each twist and turn he finds himself veiled further still.

 

The tiles are chipped and rough beneath his feet, furniture sparser until none existed at all.

 

Bellamy holds his breath, apprehension prickling the nape of his neck. He recalls the horror movies he used to watch with Octavia, how they both hid under the covers giggling in fright until their mother shushed them, eyes anxious at the door.

 

Shadows web the walls, and Bellamy brings his flame up to their darkness.

 

Sketches, hundreds it seemed, woven together.

 

There is Kane, speaking with Indra, her camouflage robes shaded with painstaking precision. Jasper chasing a wayward butterfly, watched by Monty, his head on Harper’s shoulder. A smiling Raven, seated on the Rover with Wick crouched by her tool box.

 

Mount Weather looms opposite, and Bellamy feels he could taste the volcanic ash, hear the chilling screams. Red streaks accompanied the charcoal, and his lungs constrict at

the sight.

 

The murals stretch onwards, sweeping low to the floorboards, winding around doorframes, some even overlap each other. Events and people, some long dead, some lost forever, engrained as one.

 

He stoops under a low arch and carries onwards, possessed by the ghostly sketches that haunt Clarke’s ravaged mind.

 

Bellamy stops short at the image of his own face.  A gun slung over his torn Guard uniform. His expression is grave, mouth set in a grim line.

 

He moves on.

 

Abby and Jake, handclasped, flowers strewn at their feet.

 

Finn tied to a pole, beaten and battered, red streaks brought to life his blood.

 

Bellamy lets out a shaky gasp.

 

Adorning an entire wall, are drawings of him and Clarke. His hand on her back as he taught her to aim the gun, the conversation as they both lay bleeding against the tree.

 

_Do you want forgiveness? Fine, I’ll give it to you. You are forgiven, okay?_

 

The hug as she greeted him from returning on a foraging trip. How he was startled at the fierceness with which she gripped him, lips pressed into his shoulder, how he hesitated before embracing her back. Octavia’s amused smile _now there’s something I thought I’d never see._

 

He sees Clarke seated in Lexa’s throne, coughing nightblood as she fought her way past ALLIE. He recalls how she reached for his hand, knowing without seeing that he would always be at her side. The warm rush at knowing that he was her person, that no matter what they were in this together.

 

Her palm against his chest, _people follow you, Bellamy, you inspire them, because of this._

 

The sketches whispered their tragic fairytale...

 

The sneer of their initial encounter

 

_Whatever the hell we want, princess!_

 

Their tenuous friendship

 

  _You may be a total ass half the time, but I need you._

 

Grudging respect

 

_Grounder princess looked pissed. Our princess has that effect._

_Every stupid thing you did, you did to protect your sister. That’s who you are Bellamy._

 

Affection

 

_I can’t lose you too._

_I’d do anything for her._

 

Betrayal

 

_I was so angry at you for leaving. You left me. You left everyone!_

 

Unspoken love

 

_If I’m on that list, you’re on that list._

 

Broken words

 

_I left her behind._

 

_May we meet again._

 

 

 

“Bellamy?” it is soft, as though the drawings had whispered to him

 

He faces her, and Clarke lays her fingertips on his arm.

 

“You’re crying.” She skims the teardrops from his cheeks, and Bellamy flickers his eyes at her touch.

 

“Clarke, what is this?”

 

She sighs, and examines her work, all the years of hysteria and heartbreak.

 

“Come on,” her hand reaches for his “I need help in the garden.”

 

Their fingers lock together, palms kissing, and he clings to her grasp.

 

 

 


	7. Chapter 7

 

Bellamy hovers at the door “Are you sure we don’t need protective suits?”

 

“2,300 days.”

 

“You counted.”

 

“Didn’t you?”

 

“Yes. Scratches in your old cell.”

 

She ducks her head, short hair obscuring her expression. Bellamy lets go of her hand.

 

“The land is still recovering.”

 

The garden is large, fenced off with stone and torn wire. Thick leafy plants impatient for water cover barely half its surface.

 

Clarke hoists a watering can to her hip, “you rip up the carrots, careful though.”

 

Bellamy chuckles “Yes Princess.”

 

 The soil is cool and rich, a deep brown studded with flecks of white mineral.

 

“It seems healthy enough.”

 

The water falls in pit-patters of rain onto the thirsty plants.

 

“That patch is, the rest of the earth, well, you saw it from space. This is the only green spot left.”

 

Her shoulders droop and she smudges dirt on her cheek as she angrily swipes at her choppy hair.

 

He wants to touch her, to squeeze her hand or stand up and brush his thumb along the soft skin of her face, instead Bellamy plops a few carrots into the worn wicker basket at Clarke’s side.

 

“How was it up there?” she forces a brightness into her eyes

 

“Lonely.”

 

“Not for long.” Her smile is brittle, a thin veil of plastered joy.

 

Bellamy focuses once more on the carrots, though he risks a glance up to Echo’s bedroom.

 

“So, those pictures.” He starts

 

“I have to refill the watering can.”

 

“Clarke.”

 

She stops, and his heart clenches at the familiar expression. The brave princess, head raised and eyes flickering with icy fire, face etched in marble.

 

“I called it therapy.”

 

The question _why me_ whirls in his mind, though in his heart he already knows the answer.

 

_We’ve been through so much together, you and I._

 

“Anyway,” Clarke crouches next to Bellamy, tearing out a few more of the vegetables before rising to her feet, “I have a plan.”

 

 

\--

 

Murphy wields his culinary skills like an iron chef.  Emori leans on the counter, teasing his dramatic flourishes and laughing at Madi’s jokes.

 

“Clarke!” the girl rushes towards the blonde, taking a flying leap into her arms.

 

She stumbles backwards and feel a warm hand support her lower back. Bellamy smiles and gently takes the basket from her arm.

 

“Murphy said that we can make cinnamon rolls!”

 

“Oh did he?” the bubbling joy is infectious

 

“Yeah! They’ll be made from beets” she makes a face “but he said that’s as sweet as we are going to get! Will you try some?”

 

“Of course.” Clarke kisses Madi’s forehead before the girl scampers off to join him at the stove.

 

Monty and Harper stroll in, the baby gurgling in her arms.

 

“I’ll get the formula.” He pulls out a chair for her, and Harper sits down, patting the baby on its back.

 

“Raven!” Emori shouts.

 

With an eye roll she addresses Clarke “She’s been poking around all the communication systems in the house, and miraculously we convinced her to eat breakfast before rushing to the lab.”

 

“I’m glad you did.” Raven huffs, sauntering in with an armload of wires and screens “because it actually smells like something I want to eat.”

 

“Is that a compliment Reyes?”

 

“Hardly.” She retorts with a smile.

 

“Good morning honey.” Echo plants a lengthy kiss on Bellamy’s lips.

 

He blushes and Clarke turns to Raven.

 

“What are you doing with that?”

 

“I can probably fix the radio on the Rover, how long has it been out?”

 

Clarke trudges into the dark recesses of her memory, pushing away the episodes of misery and unrelenting fear.

 

“About three years. I accidentally broke it, while trying to fix it.”

 

Raven arches an eyebrow “Accidentally? Looks like you ripped it out.”

 

 

_Her fingers are bloody and her knees scabbed, the torn flesh jerks at contact with the rough cement floor._

 

_“Come on, come on!” she clenches her teeth, jamming her hand farther into the radio port, feeling the plastic of wires. A tiny spark electrocutes through her, and she yanks back with a whelp._

 

_“You stupid son of a bitch!”_

 

_She has been at this for weeks, pouring over manuals, fiddling with tiny pieces of machinery, assembling and re-assembling the communications system._

 

_“just a little further…”_

 

_Another small shock, but she shoves past the discomfort, plugging in the cords. Static ripples on the radio and she laughs_

 

_“Yes! Yes!”_

 

_As she withdraws from the compartment, her sleeve catches, and the static goes dead as the wire is snagged._

 

_“No!” angry, frustrated tears heat her cheeks, and she scrabbles to fix the mess._

 

_The system short-circuits, bolts of electricity snapping at her skin._

 

_With a cry she wrenches free, tearing the cords out._

 

_“No! No! I was so close!”_

 

_Her yells echo in the empty garage, and the Rover sits like the carcass of a spider._

 

_“ugghhhh!”_

 

_Barely registering her actions, Clarke rips out the remaining wires. The Rover sputters and fades._

 

_The static never came back._

 

Monty’s thumping footsteps save her from explanation.

 

“What’s the plan?” he asks, passing the bottle to the baby’s outstretched hands.

 

They all pause and look at her, the sizzle of the stove and the sucking of the bottle the only noise.

 

Even Bellamy is silent, arms folded as he waits expectantly.

 

Clarke licks her lips “We take stock of the food, we will probably need to go hunting. Raven and Monty will get the computers up and running. Bellamy, you’re in charge of the Rover, get whoever can to help you. The rest of us will gather the supplies.”

 

They nod.

 

“And then,” her breath hitches

 

“We go to Polis.”


	8. Chapter 8

 

The preparations commence minutes after the breakfast dishes are cleared. Harper opts for a “management” position, mostly bouncing her happy baby on her lap while listening to the others bustle about.

 

Bellamy sets off for the Rover, Echo on his heels. Emori and Murphy were quickly forming an attachment to Madi, and they listen eagerly as she rattles off the locations of luggage, equipment, and storage containers.

 

Clarke follows Raven and Monty into the lab.

 

“Bit dingy in here.” Raven kicks at bits of rubbish that litter the floor.

 

While the house was kept in pristine condition, owing namely to Clarke’s monotony and slipping sanity, the lab had received only a single brisk washing.

 

“Did you do anything in here?” Monty asks, frowning at the frayed equipment

 

“Some spot cleaning.” Her friends look at her doubtfully.

 

“I just couldn’t, I couldn’t figure it out myself.”

 

Raven squares her shoulders and faces Clarke, piercing her with a knowing glare “we both know you are capable of fixing it, so why is it in such shitty condition?”

 

“I,” she swallows “I didn’t want to know, if, if you were dead.”

 

Monty drops his eyes to the floor, Raven holds hers for a heartbeat longer before clapping her hands together “well, we better get started then!”

 

 

\--

 

Parenthood certainly threw a wrench into their productivity. After a few hours, Monty, guilt coloring him red, murmurs something about babysitting and slips off.

 

The mechanic sighs “Just you and me then.”

 

Clarke mumbles in agreement “How much longer until this will give us the information we need?”

 

“Well if someone would have maintained it,” Raven cuts off her retort upon seeing dejected waters brewing in Clarke’s eyes. She places her hand on the girl’s shoulder “Hey, I’m sorry. It must have been hard.”

 

“Yeah,” Clarke breathes out slowly “it was, to say the least.”

 

Raven licks her lips, hovering uncertainly on the edge of a question.

 

“Just spit it out Raven.”

 

“Bellamy.”

 

Clarke tenses, and fiddles with the computer.

 

“Does it hurt?”

 

“Did it hurt when you saw me with Finn?”

 

Raven winces as though she’d been hit.

 

Clarke drops her head into her hands “That was a low blow. He loved you, you know? It was always you. I’m glad it was always you.”

 

“Don’t change the subject.” Her tone is stern, but Clarke sees the forgiveness in her smile. “It hurts, doesn’t it?”

 

“Yes.” she laughs bitterly “I never really had him…but Raven I feel like…like I lost him.”

 

Raven softens “He was a mess, after leaving you behind. He did his work, and kept watch at the window, it was hell seeing him like that. He even slept in your old cell. Once, when I really thought he’d lost it, he said he’d heard your voice.”

 

“What?”

 

“On the transmission, which made no sense because the mechanics didn’t check out and we were running low on fuel, not to mention – ”

 

 

_He heard me_

 

\--

 

 _He had watched the world burn. Watched from the rocket as Praimfaya swept through, merciless, razing everything in its path_. _Watched from the safety of the Ark as the Earth blazed crimson red before settling to ashy dust, blocking the sun and freezing anything left clinging to a scrap of life._

 

_Clarke blocked his thoughts, commanded his attention, controlled his mind. She infiltrated even the basic of tasks, and haunted his nightmares._

 

_Her old cell beckoned him, whispered to him, and he fought off the urge for weeks. Meanwhile it grew, a sickness that hissed in the darkness._

 

_Just one look, he promised himself, just one, and it’ll help it all go away._

 

_With the Ark in shambles it took days to locate, but Bellamy had nothing but time, yawning ahead like the infinitesimal reaches of space itself._

 

_To conserve power, Raven cut off the circulation of heat to this wing, and the chill resounded in the cold loneliness of his heart._

 

_From the outside it bore no resemblance of the beauty that lay within. Standard issue steel door, with a name plate, the removable card bearing her name was faded until the letters read only ‘ark.’_

 

_He swung the door open, and he stepped into another world._

 

_Leaves wound around the perimeter, encircling trees that sprung towards a dazzling sun. Deer grazed in the shade, hooves delicately placed between wildflowers. Birds twittered in the branches, and a waterfall hummed._

 

_Astonished, Bellamy sat down heavily._

 

_She had created a miracle._

 

_Closing his eyes, he concentrated on breathing. The rich scent of soil adorned the stale air. He heard the babbling of the brook, tasted the crispness of fresh water._

 

_And most of all, the heaviness in his chest eased just a little._

 

_Surrounded by her work, Bellamy knew that though he may have left her behind, she had not abandoned him, and this last gift of peace was proof._

 

_Ignoring the concerned glances of his friends, Bellamy dragged his sleeping bag to the cell. He read the old myths beneath the canopy of her leaves, and rested in the comforting presence of her sketched forest animals._

 

_The funeral games of Virgil’s Aeneid sent him into a doze, exhaustion tugging at his eyelids. The book slipped from his grasp, and he rolled over onto his side, snuggling deeper into the pillow. The last few sentences floated in his mind as he tried to recall what page he had left off on._

 

_“It’s me, Clarke”_

 

_Bellamy bolted upright, tearing apart his covers and flinging aside the novel._

 

_Static crackled from the radio. He pressed down on the button so hard he could feel it sink “Clarke? Clarke are you alive?”_

 

_She continued “Anyway,” deep sigh, the defeat in her voice launched a panic of tightness in his chest “it’s just me. I found some food though.”_

 

_“Clarke,” his voice broke, interrupted by tears_

 

_“Come back to me.”_

 

_The static stopped._

 

_“Clarke! Clarke!” his shouts alerted Raven, who was angrily marching towards the cell, a kind but firm speech prepared on how power had to be converted away from this wing, meaning no one could set foot in it._

 

_She rounded the corner._

 

_Bellamy was crouched low, the radio pressed to his ear, knuckles white on the button._

 

_“Clarke? Clarke I am here, I didn’t leave you.” He rocked back and forth on his heels, his body quaking._

 

_Bellamy’s eyes were bloodshot, his hair was a ragged mess, his clothes askew._

 

_The plea was hopeless, childlike, and Raven backed away._

 

 


	9. Chapter 9

 

“I like Emori and Murphy.”

 

“That may be a first.” Clarke teases, weaving colored ribbons into Madi’s thick hair.

 

“She says they are going to try for a baby.”

 

Butterflies flutter in her veins at the thought. She sees the adoration in their eyes when they look at each other, and despite all of Murphy’s shortcomings, he would be a great father. Two babies, a stepping stone for mankind’s slow climb towards recovery.

 

“That’s wonderful!”

 

Madi yawns “Do you think Echo and Bellamy will be next?”

 

Her hands momentarily still, and when she resumed the braid it is with slightly trembling fingertips.

 

“Well I don’t know, I would suppose so.”

 

“The way you always talked about him, I thought he’d be…I don’t know…more?”

 

“More?”

 

“Less damaged.”

 

Clarke ties the end of the braid neatly with a bow, and they relax into the pillows, Madi’s head on her chest.

 

“We are all damaged. Besides, space…it’s lonely.”

 

“Yeah, but, you made him out to be this great hero, like, Hercules or something from the books we read.”

 

She chuckles and kisses her daughter’s head “He was, once.”

 

Madi feels the familiar wave of sadness swallowing her adoptive mother, how her heart slows and her limbs drag.

 

She snuggles closer, “I want to hear about space.”

 

 

\--

 

 

Bellamy greeted her in the garden, a bittersweetness in his brown eyes. He held out an extra pair of gloves.

 

“The watering can is full.”

 

She nodded, her throat feeling tight.

 

Behind her, Bellamy uprooted weeds and trimmed brittle leaves.

 

“So…is Madi yours?”

 

Clarke straightened, leveling him with an irritated glower. “Do I look like I gave birth? What man could I possibly have slept with in the middle of Praimfaya?”

 

He skims her form, creating an unsettling mix of arousal and infidelity churning in her stomach.

 

“No.”

 

She sighs “Madi saved me, even though I rescued her from the radiation two years ago.”

 

“ _Two years_?” his eyes widen and he sets down the trowel “ _two years_? How did she survive, and what were you doing out of the bunker a year before it was technically safe?”

 

 

\--

 

 

_Acute Radiation Sickness plagued her for two weeks after her little adventure outdoors. When she awoke from the fever, the shakes dulling, vomit reeking at her bedside, Clarke discovered the pantry’s paltry remains._

 

_Sickness be damned. She was tired of the isolation, the claustrophobia of the air. She was hungry, and starvation was already a death sentence on her head._

 

_Clarke chose a handgun, a bow and three pitiful arrows. She consumed the last of her rations for strength, praying she’d find something to kill and eat out there, or she knew she would die within the month._

 

_The same barren sight of a poisoned earth received Clarke as she slowly trekked from the bunker. She paused often, to sip water and readjust her oxygen mask._

 

_The forest that used to span the length of the horizon was burned to a charred corpse. Chasms scarred the land and crimson water hissed over rocks._

 

_This scant patch of green appeared to be the only living thing left. A few skeletal trees languished, with tenuous buds peeking forth. The undergrowth was thin, and Clarke crawled over the brittle bristles of grass._

 

_She half-heartedly set up a few rabbit traps, and sat back to watch the sun’s withering ascent._

 

_Clarke knew she was going to die. The Will to Live wailed at thought, pummeled her with weakening fists. It was but a dull echo against the sealed doors of fate._

 

_Acceptance, resignation, it was warm and comfortable._

 

_This must be how Jasper felt._

 

_She thought of her friends, briefly wondering if they would ever make it out, what would become of her bones._

 

_It was fleeting, ephemeral, and she waded into the beckoning water, the waves lapping gently at the sand._

 

_Behind her was bloodshed, chaos. Ahead stretched the welcoming ocean, so smooth, so calm. The sand squished between her toes, and salt spray perfumed the air._

 

_The waves took her hands and pulled her into the embrace of the water, caressing her battered body and whispering sweet nothings._

 

_Something snapped on the beach, and a scream sliced through the serenity._

 

_The ocean dragged her under, the waves tugging. She fought and raged, the Will resurfaced._

 

_Clarke sat up, the blood sluggishly flowing again._

 

_A girl, eyes wild and teeth bared in a snarl, crouched in front of a screaming rabbit._

 

_“Hello?” Clarke couldn’t tell if she was real, or if she was still floating on the slippery precipice of death._

 

_A knife flicked open, and adrenaline shot through Clarke’s veins, forcing her away from the edge._

 

_She jumped, tackling the child to the scraggly underbrush._

 

_“No! No!” the girl struggled, flailing and twisting._

 

_“I’m not going to hurt you!” Clarke shouted against the ringing of her ears “I’m not going to hurt you.”_

 

_She released the child from her grip,_

 

_“What’s your name?”_

 

_Tears streaked the face of the girl, leaving shiny tracks in the grime of her cheeks. “M-madi.”_

 

_“Well Madi,” she smiled despite the exhaustion “I’m Clarke, let’s go eat some rabbit huh?”_

 

\--

 

“How old was she, when you found her.”

 

“About seven, she’s nine now, nearing ten.” She beams like a proud mother.

 

“She’s lucky, to have you.” He enthralls her with his chocolate gaze, pulsing with murmurs of the unsaid, and haunted by memories of the undone.

 

She looks away and clears her throat, stabbing the ground a little harder than necessary with the roughshod hoe.

 

“Madi tells me Emori and Murphy are trying for a baby, when will you and Echo?”

 

Bellamy leans on the rake “My mother would roll over in her grave if I didn’t put a ring on Echo’s finger first.”

 

He studies her, but she is composed, not the slightest tick of her body betrays the tumult raging inside.

 

“That didn’t stop you from your Casanova days when we first landed.”

 

His laugh stirs a meager flock of birds to flight, and the plants seem to bend towards its warmth. “I was still figuring things out then.”

 

“‘Whatever the hell we want.’” She teases

 

 

“We are a long way from that.” His eyes trace the path of the birds as they soar towards Polis.

 

 


	10. Chapter 10

 

Echo barely speaks to Bellamy after she spots them laughing in the garden, Clarke’s hands cupping his as she instructs him on how to properly plant the fragile little roots.

 

“Echo, please tell me what’s wrong, what I can do to fix – ”

 

“I’m going to the library.”

 

He knows better than to follow her, and so he replaces the tension with the scalding heat of the shower and crawls into bed.

 

The bed sinks and envelopes him, and Bellamy is reminded of the moss mattresses the delinquents scraped together during their first weeks. A little remote controlling the firmness of the mattress sits unused on the bedside table. The batteries were long since drained, and when Monty asked Raven for replacements, she fixed him with a blank stare.

 

“I didn’t come down from space to make sure your pansy ass had a soft cushion.”

 

Clarke had laughed at that, deep guffaws that left her clutching her stomach and nearly squeezing tears from her eyes. It made Bellamy smile, how long was it since she had felt so merry?

 

The door creaks and he rolls towards it, clearing aside the pillows.

 

“Echo?”

 

She steps further into the room, shutting out the trickle of light from the hallway as the door clicks shut.

 

It’s not her. His breathing quickens as he inhales the earthy scent of her skin.

 

She slips under the covers, and her bare feet touch his.

 

Of their own accord his arms reach for her, and he feels her heartbeat against his own as he rests his chin atop her wavy blonde hair.

 

“I missed you.”

 

He hugs her tighter, relaxing his hand in the curve of her hip. Her fingers curl around the neckline of his shirt, and she entwines their legs together.

 

They click together, the perfect key to the only lock. This was how they slept those weeks after ALLIE, those weeks before Praimfaya.

 

 

 

_Damn it Clarke._

 

_The lantern in her room is lit, casting shadows beneath the door that lick hungrily at his feet._

 

_He knocks twice, hears papers rustling and the hasty shut of a drawer._

 

_“Bellamy.” She tries her best to appear sleepy, softening her features and shuffling towards him._

 

_“Cut it out Clarke.”_

 

_The exhaustion that lines her face is real, though she hides it behind a spark of defiance._

 

_“What Bellamy?”_

 

_He shoulders his way into her room, surveying the web of maps tacked to the wall, and scribbled notebooks that are piled into leaning towers._

 

_“It’s two in the morning.”_

 

_She crosses her arms over her chest “I’m working.”_

 

_“You’re always working.”_

 

_He sees her chin waver, her shoulders drop as though the pile of boulders she hoists atop them are finally rolling loose._

 

_“Praimfaya is – ”_

 

_“I know.” He steps closer, his fingertips grazing her waist. “We will figure it out, together. But Clarke, you’re no good if you don’t sleep.”_

 

_She bows her head and presses her face to his neck. “It’s so hard Bellamy.”_

 

_He holds her, weaving his hands in her thick braid, his lips to her hair as he breathes in the scent of home._

 

_“I know.”_

 

_She shudders with a quiet sob against his chest._

 

_“Hey,” he thumbs away the tears, tilting her chin to meet his gaze “We are going to survive Clarke, we always do.”_

 

_She blinks in admission, and a cool breeze replaces the warmth of her body as she steps toward the bed._

 

_“Sleep, fine.”_

 

_“Don’t open the books as soon as I’m gone.”_

 

_“What! You think I,” she rolls her eyes at his stern expression, his lips pursed. “You going to stand watch?”_

 

_A chuckle rumbles deep within his chest and he smirks at her annoyance._

 

_“Do I have to?” he doesn’t move from his position at the end of the bed._

 

_With a huff Clarke flings the coverlet aside._

 

_“Well if you are going to you might as well be comfortable.”_

 

_Thrills race up his spine and tingle in his arms._

 

_“Yes Princess.”_

 

_“Are you going to move over?” Bellamy is half hanging off the bed, the covers offering little protection from the cold air._

 

_“No.” her smile in the dark warms the chill of the room._

 

_“Well then.”_

 

_She shrieks as he wraps a strong arm around her waist, pushing her farther into the center of the bed. Bellamy pulls the covers up to their chins._

 

_Clarke spits her hair out of her face and he helps brush the feisty strands back in place, a smirk dancing on his lips “at least we will be warm.”_

 

_She huffs in exasperation, a heartbeat of silence ticks by, and then she shifts her head to rest on his arm, “is this okay?”_

 

_His breathing quickens “Yes.” Bellamy encircles her in his embrace. “Is this okay.”_

 

_“Yes.”_

 

_She places her palm over his thudding pulse. “Goodnight Bellamy.”_

 

_“Goodnight Princess.” He mumbles, nuzzling into her hair._

 

 

Bellamy wakes up alone, a tangle of throw pillows at his side. The moonlight haunts from behind the curtains, and he shrugs on a sweatshirt before padding out to the kitchen.

 

The fridge door is open, gray light glimmering artificially on the white floor.

 

“You hungry too?” Madi asks, holding aloft a thick slice of bread.

 

She doesn’t wait for his response “I sure am glad you guys brought back more food, rice and skinny rabbit gets old real quick.”

 

He offers a breathy laugh and takes the stool opposite the fridge.

 

“Have you seen Echo?”

 

The smile disappears “Yeah, she asked me to show her to her other room.”

 

“Oh.” A stone drops in his chest, dragging him under the murky waters of hissing anxiety and whirling questions.

 

“So,” Madi chews loudly “You’re the Great Bellamy Blake.”

 

“I don’t know about the ‘Great’ part.”

 

“The epithet?”

 

She giggles at his astounded expression “They’re real common in the mythology books, ‘Wily Odysseus,’ ‘Grey-eyed Athena.’”

 

“You read _The Odyssey_?”

 

“Well,” she spreads another layer of jam onto the crumbling slice of bread “Clarke read them to me at first, then when I got better, I read them.”

 

He nods, mulling over this new information. His heart whispered eagerly of what it meant, of what it means, but his brain quelled the hope.

 

“What was Clarke like, before,” she gestures with the butter knife “all this.”

 

“Brave, headstrong, always rushing into danger.”

 

“She said you were the one always rushing into danger, and she had to reel you in.”

 

Amusement like golden amber twinkles in his brown eyes “So that’s how she tells it?”

 

“Uh huh.” Madi swallows a hunk of the crusty bread “She spoke about you a lot, all of her friends, but after a while she quit mentioning you. She got really sad. But she still radioed you every day.”

 

“She what?” the stool wobbles precariously as Bellamy leans forward, hands gripped tightly together.

 

“Radioed you. Well, the ship in the stars I guess. She spoke about the others, but spoke only to you.”

 

Madi pauses, her eyes curious “is that what love is?”

 

Bellamy clears his throat, trying to find his voice as it screamed itself hoarse inside his aching chest “I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t know.”

 

The girl harumphs and resumes slathering the bread.

 

“What can you tell me about the drawings?”

 

Madi shivers “A bit creepy don’t you think? They were here when I came, though she added on. I try to avoid that hallway, all those eyes, the dead people, it seems cursed.”

 

 

 


	11. Chapter 11

 

Raven has to pry Monty away from Harper and the baby “We need an engineer, end of discussion.”

 

“Paternity leave is up!” Murphy shouts from the Rover

 

“I’ll be okay, you go.” Harper kisses Monty, and he spends the afternoon staring out the back window as Bellamy speeds towards Polis.

 

Echo bristles when Clarke beats her to shotgun “Sorry,” she says, though she is anything but “I have to navigate.”

 

The Azgeda warrior grits her teeth and sits in the back, steam permeating the atmosphere from her anger.

 

Raven winks at Clarke in the rearview mirror.

 

“So, what should we be prepared for.”

 

“Rubble.” She is solemn “Lots of it.”

 

The whole tower of Polis, the beacon for mankind’s remnants, was entirely collapsed.

 

“And they’re buried under all that,” Murphy sighs “We are going to need another shovel.”

 

“Raven,” Bellamy strides towards her, grim “let’s get the communications up and running.”

 

Hours slip by, and despite all their tinkering, the radio is silent. Bellamy storms off after Clarke insists they break for dinner, and she spies the relief in her friends’ faces.

 

Echo marches after her boyfriend. “We are going to get there.”

 

His back is rigid, shoulders strained. She gives up and heads back, shame reddening her face at the others’ glances.

 

She looks at Clarke, who is watching Bellamy, and feels the green-eyed monster of jealousy rear its ugly head.

 

 _Go after him_ , she wants to spit.

 

Clarke tactfully waits another ten minutes, making idle conversation before excusing herself under the cover of nature’s call.

 

He hears the familiar crunch of her boots, and they stand together viewing the pitiful carcass of earth.

 

“I know Octavia is fine.” She says it with such confidence that Bellamy shifts towards her.

 

“She defeated Luna after all, and became the Commander. You raised her well Bellamy.”

 

The moonlight glints across his eyes, and she blushes at the _thank you_ that lightens his depths.

 

“Guys! I got something.”

 

Clarke smirks _I told you so_ , and they rejoin the group.

 

“Hello? Is this the Bunker? Repeat, is this the Bunker? Come in.”

 

Anticipation hovers in the air like a biblical pestilence.

 

“Did you get anything?”

 

“Shh!”

 

Clarke itches to grab the radio from Raven, but settles for pacing in a scuffed circle.

 

“Hello is anyone there?” the voice is crackled and faint, but they pounce on it.

 

“Yes! Yes!” they shout

 

“Shut up!” Emori commands “let Raven speak!”

 

Bellamy grumbles and Clarke touches his hand comfortingly, pinky finger grazing his. He takes a deep breath, and rehearses the meditative practices he was forced to learn when the nightmares seized him with paralyzing terror.

 

“This is the Second Dawn Bunker. I repeat this is – ”

 

“This is Raven! With Monty, Clarke, Bellamy, Echo, Murphy, and Emori!”

 

“Clarke?” the static rustles and she wants to cry in relief at the sound of her mother’s voice.

 

“Abby! We are coming for you!”

 

Raven tackles Clarke into a hug as Abby’s muffled sobs sputter over the transmission.

 

Bellamy places his hand on the small of her back, and for the first time in years Clarke is touched by the charming rays of happiness.

 

The crew prepares an excavation site the second the sun climbs into the sky with Homer’s “rosy red-fingers of Dawn.”

 

Weeks sail by, and Clarke feels her muscles hum to life and thicken under the sunshine and company. It helps that Bellamy always pushes a portion of his food onto her plate

 

“You need to eat Clarke.”

 

“So do you.”

 

He tucks a strand of errant blonde hair behind her ear “You need it more.”

 

He won’t give up until she consumes every last bite. Satisfied, he unrolls his sleeping bag by Echo, who shuns his presence.

 

The day they finish clearing a space large enough for the hatch to open, they radio in.

 

“Do you read Second Dawn Bunker?”

 

“Yes.”

 

Raven laughs breathlessly, smudging away a tear “It’s clear. Welcome home.”

 

 

\--

 

Bellamy unconsciously reaches for Clarke as they await the unsealing of the bunker door’s, but checks himself just as their fingertips brush. She glances at him from the corner of her eye, and shuffles closer to Raven.

 

The door hisses and steams as it unlocks with a screech.

Murphy peers down “Ladies first.”

 

Clarke huffs and pushes him out of the way, descending in the lead.

 

“Wanheda.”

 

She freezes at the gruff voice. Her heart races and the bunker’s walls echo the prison of Becca’s mansion. She is suffocating in the tomb once more, with claws at her throat.

 

Roan steps into the light, flanked by guards – a mix of Skaikru and Grounder – with guns.

 

“We have much to speak about.”

 

 


	12. Chapter 12

 

“Where the hell is Octavia?” Bellamy slams his fist on the table, the knick knacks atop its mahogany surface are briefly airborne.

 

“She’s in medical.” Abby is patient, but every nerve quivers with the mother instinct to smother Clarke and never let go.

 

Bellamy edges towards Roan, teeth bared in a snarl, and Clarke steps in front of him.

 

“Roan.”

 

“King Roan.” He corrects with a slight sneer

 

“King Roan, will you please” she emphasizes the _please_ with a flash of insolence. “tell us what is going on.”

 

\--

 

A rebellion broke out two years into the restless concord, killing eighty, Indra among them, and Jaha, though no one mourned his death quite as much.

 

Lincoln had a son.

 

An eight year old boy, born by a Trikru woman, sometime during the arrival of the 100. The discovery swept Octavia back into the void of grief, and Roan assumed command, declaring her unfit to lead.

 

“How _dare_ you.” Bellamy seizes Roan by the collar “You power-hungry bastard.”

 

The man is impassive “See for yourself.”

 

\--

 

_The girl under the floorboards had risen to wield the crown and scepter, her fist iron, eyes a tempest. She was revered as the reincarnation of Becca Praimheda, the first commander resurfaced from a foreign home amongst the stars, an outcast by her people, to lead the Grounders from the ashes of Praimfaya._

 

_She lacked the easy grace of Becca, and her face was haunted by the threatening shadows of Heda makeup. While her people did not love her, they feared her, flattening low to the floor at the click of her sword belt, the drumming of her long stride._

 

_To One Kru she was the fearsome queen they needed, in private, alone in her grand room, Octavia devolved back into the trembling child hidden beneath the floor._

 

_Lincoln’s death played like an endless tape in her dreams, and when awake she caught glimpses of his essence in her people’s tattoos, their smiles and rippling muscle._

 

_He taught her love, and lent her the strength to explore and to harden into a woman of her own making. In Lincoln she discovered herself, and he was ripped from her when she was finally ready to stand at his side as an equal._

 

_The boy had darted in front of her path, chasing a ball, and she stopped it with a touch of her boot. The child bowed his head, shrank into himself._

 

_Octavia picked up the ball and kneeled before him. The incessant fear shown by her subjects clawed at her heart, mauling feelings of love and joy until the girl Lincoln loved was locked in a tower, and the numbed Queen held the key._

 

_His small hands took the ball from her, and he murmured his thanks in a boyish piping voice._

 

_She felt a smile spreading over, thawing her frozen insides. The child looked up, relieved that his mistake was forgiven._

 

_Octavia was paralyzed._

 

_“Milady!” The boy’s mother bustled from the hallway, out of breath in her frantic attempts to keep pace with her energetic son._

 

_“Forgive us!”_

 

_“Lincoln.” Octavia croaked, stunned to see flickers of her beloved’s face gazing up at her from the confused child._

 

_The mother bowed, and dragged her son from the room._

 

_“Octavia.” Indra was stern, a firm hand on her apprentice’s shoulder “Keep moving.”_

 

\--

 

“O! O!” Bellamy’s shouts send One Kru into nervous twitters like a startled flock of birds.

 

Abby pulls Clarke aside while Bellamy stomps in impatience as the guards fiddle with the keys.

 

“It doesn’t look very good.”

 

Her eyes flash a tempestuous blue “I gather that, but locking her up in solitary doesn’t help either.”

 

Abby grabs Clarke’s wrists “She isn’t in solitary! She just, she just,” she gulps in a ragged breath “She tried to hurt herself, after the rebellion failed, after we couldn’t get through to the Ark, after Indra was murdered and Lincoln’s little boy died. She collapsed Clarke. She just _collapsed_.”

 

Bellamy rams his shoulder into the door, storming inside.

 

Clarke moves to follow him, Echo at her side, but Abby holds them back.

 

“Don’t.”

 

The doors seal shut.

 

\--

 

The room is a blinding reminder of the Ark, gray, toneless walls, bitter steel trappings.

 

A child is hunched in the corner, arms around knees, rocking.

 

“ _Jus drein jus daun. Jus drein jus daun. Jus drein jus daun_.”

 

It is acidic, biting, and Bellamy fights down a lump in his throat at the sight of angry red scratches lining her arms.

 

“O.” he sinks to his hands and knees, reaching for her tentatively.

 

She turns towards him, but doesn’t see him.

 

“ _Jus drein jus daun. Jus drein jus daun. Jus drein jus daun_.”

 

“O,” his voice trembles “I’m back, I’m here for you.”

 

She laughs, a shrill croak “Hear that? Big Brother came back…Big Brother…Big Brother…Jus drein jus daun…”

 

Bellamy touches her shoulder, the skin cold and puckered with scars and scratches.

 

She lunges, outstretched for his face, her green eyes an evergreen forest set ablaze.

 

“Octavia!” he throws her off of him, reaching around to pin her arms to his sides.

 

She thrashes and writhes in the awkward embrace, and Bellamy weeps.

 

 


	13. Chapter 13

 

His eyes are bloodshot, his rigid posture formidable.

 

With a sly glance towards Clarke, Echo steps forward.

 

Bellamy pushes past her, past Clarke, and walks up the steps and back into the howling winds above the bunker.

 

Abby takes Clarke’s hand, and together they go in to see Octavia.

 

\--

 

“Bellamy.” Her tone is tense, smothered by feelings unsaid and an ache that weeps to reach for him.

 

He doesn’t acknowledge her. Dead to all, save the sword of pain that is plunged hilt-deep into his expiring heart.

 

Slowly, she sits next to him, inches of space between.

 

“My mother thinks, and I do too, that with you here, we can bring her back. We can bring her back, Bellamy.”

 

 He is asphyxiated with clogged emotions “I should have stayed, I should have – ”

 

“No, you can’t do this to yourself. This isn’t your fault.”

 

“Yes.” He swipes the weakness from his face and stands “My sister, my responsibility.”

 

Clarke rises to her feet “We will fix this.” She whispers, begging him to understand.

 

He won’t meet her earnest gaze, and she places her fingertips to his jaw.

 

“Okay?”

 

He crumbles, and she holds him tightly, as though the pain of two broken hearts could ease in shared anguish.

 

 


	14. Chapter 14

 

“Please, sit.”  Roan motions towards an empty chair, formerly a throne, though its gilded paint was flaking and the leather bore fissures and cracks.

 

“How are you still alive?”

 

“Nightblood. I wasn’t going to leave anything to chance.”

 

“But Luna killed you…”

 

“That’s what it looked like.”

 

Clarke frowns, disappointment darkening her stare “So you ran. You took the coward’s way out. You could have killed Luna.”

 

“And have the other clans know I cheated? I couldn’t risk that for my people. Octavia knew what she was doing.”

 

She is immovable, and Roan sighs. He had cast aside his luxuriant furs in favor of the simple t-shirts bearing the mark of OneKru.

 

“We still are not strong, not one.”

 

“You had six years.” Impatience is thinning Clarke’s voice, and she scratches at the peeling gold of the armrest.

 

“Clarke,” Roan leans forward, catching her eyes with his own “I am trying to propose a truce, of sorts.”

 

“We don’t seem to be very adept at keeping those.”

 

He lets out an awkward chuckle “Wanheda, you have only grown stronger with age.”

 

The flattery sparks no warmth, and she remains unyielding as stone.

 

“Clarke of Skaikru, I want to marry you.”

 

Her wandering mind snaps to attention, and she rallies her wits for a retort at this brazen joke that stings her already sore heart.

 

“What?”

 

Roan’s large hands cover her own, and he caresses her fingers “Clarke, I want to marry you. It would be an excellent political move – the clans would be further united.”

 

His eyes are soft, his face earnest, the harsh lines erased by the hope of such a union.

 

She keeps her hands lax in his clasp, offering no hint of affection “We have both proven we can no longer maintain our clans. Besides, Octavia is – ”

 

He shakes his head “No, she is gone. All will descend into chaos if we do not take charge.”

 

“Regicide. I will not.”

 

Clarke stands, disentangling herself from his intimate gesture.

 

Ice flickers back into his gaze, seeping into his tone “You have no one to grow old with Wanheda. I will always respect you. I may not promise love, but it wouldn’t be a horrid affair.”

 

She stiffens at his warning of eternal loneliness, rounding on him with lips pursed and eyes rising with flames to meet his dare.

 

“You would want children.”

 

“Yes, and I believe so would you.”

 

Roan is not unattractive, far from it if she was being honest with herself.  Yet in her darkest moments, when she let herself be tempted into such dangerous rapids, Clarke had always pictured her children with a smattering of freckles, curly hair and smiles that could charm the devil.

 

“Do I need to sing your praises?” the King of Azgeda’s voice is clipped with annoyance. “You are well-built, attractive, with a heart you keep in iron and a mind to match.”

 

It sounds so formal, so…dispassionate, stale even.

 

Roan towers to his full height, scrutinizing her expression like a lion watches a snarling lioness.

 

“Think about it. I can give you a kingdom.”

 

The bristles of his cropped beard scuff her cheek as he kisses her.

 

With a brisk nod and strong stride, he leaves the room “Until then, Wanheda.”

 

Clarke breathes a sigh of relief, rubbing at the spot on her cheek.

 

 

 _He isn’t abhorrent_ , she tries to convince herself, though it was a small wail amidst a tempest churning with indifference and resolute refusal.

 

_You can never have Bellamy._

 

The realization is a blow to her stomach and she sinks back into the chair. Of course she had known it, ever since he stepped off the wreckage of a ship handclasped with a woman and a baby in his arms.

 

She just never wanted to admit it.

 

 

It is one thing to know, another entirely to realize.

 

 

 

_As Queen of One Kru Clarke’s loved ones would be sacred. She could complete Lexa’s dream, flare the life into her vision of a united clan. The days and nights of deciding who lives and who dies would be but a bad dream. As Queen with a warrior like Roan at her side, One Kru would not only survive the sterile lands, but thrive._

 

_She would have children, handsome boys trained in the art of war and beautiful girls bearing the crown of leadership. Her mother would bloom at a castle full of laughing children. Clarke could see Kane and Abby in rocking chairs, never quite retired, but no longer straining under the yoke of leadership._

 

_Roan would bounce the boys on his knee, singing battle cries and smirking at the shake of Clarke’s head as he coaxed his sons to try a bit of ale._

 

_The girls would command the heart of their father, maybe then Roan would know love. They would spar with the mightiest weapons and glitter with the weight of a thousand jewels._

 

_“Another babe!” he would say and kiss Clarke on the mouth, patting her bump and escorting her to the throne room._

 

_He would cradle the child in his arms, coo over its precious face and declare it the handsomest and strongest baby he had ever seen!_

 

_Exhausted from labor and too weak stand, Clarke would be given on bended knee another sword, or gifted another fine cloak._

 

 

_Roan would love her children but never her._

 

 

_Their sons and daughters would brave wars, for peace is an illusion dreamt by the better parts of men’s wistful souls._

 

_“Come home with your shield or on it.”_

 

_They could not bear to look at each other after their firstborn’s body was carried high on his bloodstained shield, fingers stiff and skin sallow._

 

_“We can have more.” Was the only solace Roan offered._

 

_Clarke washed and draped the body, an insufferable act she would perform twice more as she laid three of her brood to rest in the unforgiving soil._

 

_After that, she and Roan lived in separate wings of the house, appearing together only for public events or official ceremonies._

 

_As the decades wore on and she blessed her grown children in marriage, buried her own mother, and welcomed squalling grandchildren into the world, the bitter loneliness ate at her body like a disease._

 

_Some days the Queen never left her room, and she could no longer lift a sword. Her lungs were ragged marble, her heart a shriveled apple core until every breath was a battle._

 

_Clarke fought Roan rancorously over the question of succession._

 

_“Wanheda you no longer command even Death, for you pray to Him every night with the dregs of your soul, and yet you are still here.”_

 

_In the end they compromised, a daughter as leader, a son as battle commander. An uneasy peace, but their home had long since been drained of amicability._

 

_Roan passed to the other side first, and Clarke performed the burial rites punctually. She groomed her children for their newfound positions, patted her grandchildren on their plump cheeks, and tucked away her crown._

 

_She had outlived nearly all of The 100 and the original Skaikru. Across the water the Blakes dwelled in harmony. Bellamy governed a bustling village, his home brimming with children and grandchildren. Octavia had vanished into the forest after the death of Lincoln’s son, her body found sleeping in eternal peace at her lover’s grave._

 

_Clarke had written letters of condolence to her old friend, and received none in reply._

 

_Until one of her sons had fallen in love with one of his daughters, and that was the final time they met._

 

_“I see Fate conspires to bring the Griffins and Blakes together after all.” He was deep into his wine then, a lethal remedy for the loss of his sister and wife._

 

_“I suppose.”_

 

_He had kissed her chastely, appropriate for parents of the newlyweds, and Clarke felt warmth seep back into her toes._

 

_She lived five years after that, secretly crediting that last touch as the elixir restoring her to a shade of health._

 

_One night, as the waves lapped at the shore and scared the gulls into silence, the moon cast its beams into her bedroom and burnished the stone an angelic white. Clarke had not been able to eat that day, and moved about restlessly._

 

_“Old age.” Her daughter had said_

 

_Though the world had faded to shadows behind her murky blue eyes and she shuffled with a stiffness that warned of oncoming death, Clarke had paced the window that night._

 

 

_The ocean blended with the sky until the stars sank into its depths and fish swam in the swirling galaxies._

 

 

_She listened as the waves whispered to her of his death. Her heart struggled with one more violent beat, and then she tasted the taint of the Ark on the salty sea breeze as it carried her home, and back into his waiting arms._

 

 

 


	15. Chapter 15

 

“Mom.” Clarke draws in a shaky breath “I need to tell you something.”

 

“Of course, what is it honey?” worry furrows her mother’s brows and Abby quickly sits down, pressing a concerned hand to Clarke’s knee.

 

“I am,” she briefly closes her eyes, steadying her voice “I am going to marry Roan.”

 

Abby offers no words, staring at Clarke with an unreadable expression.

 

“Why?”

 

“It is a good match, a political arrangement.”

 

“But you don’t love him.” Tears glisten in her mother’s eyes and she grips Clarke’s fingers in her own, striving through strength to convey her dismay, to warn her daughter the pain of a loveless marriage.

 

“It’s not about love mom, it’s about doing what’s right. What’s right for One Kru.”

 

Abby sits back, her mouth in a tight line “If this is what you want, you know I’ll support you in whatever path you choose.”

 

“Thank you mom.”

 

Clarke hugs her mother, choking back her doubts as her mother gently rubs her hair.

 

“Make sure you tell him.”

 

“Roan? Obviously.” She chuckles.

 

“No.” Abby’s voice is tired “ _Him_.”

 

\--

 

Bellamy tries to ignore the little skip, hop, dance, his heart performed when he picked up Clarke’s folded letter.

 

_Meet me in the garden, 1pm?_

 

Echo shuffles into the room, dropping her bow with a clang to the floor. Bellamy stuffs the note into his pocket, burying the niggling creep of guilt that wiggles in his mind.

 

“I’m going out for a bit.” He bends down to kiss Echo on the cheek, but she turns her head.

 

He sighs and leaves.

 

“Secret messages huh?” he grins, though it vanishes when he sees Clarke.

 

She is sitting on the stone bench, carefully avoiding the large crack that tore through the right side. Her hands clasped tightly on her lap, and her cheeks are swelled slightly and red.

 

“Clarke,” he drops by her side, instantly reaching to take her hand in his.

 

She jerks away, and he winces.

 

“Bellamy.”

 

He swallows, tensing his shoulders. Things never went well with this tone. This tone is the _If anything happens to me_.

 

“I am marrying Roan.”

 

He thinks the world was spinning, like on the remnants of the Ark, when the spaceship rotated in lazy circles, except this time everything is in fast forward. The trees shake their limbs and the bushes flash at the edges of his vision.

 

“What?”

 

“I said, I am marrying Roan.”

 

“Roan…” Azgeda Roan. King Roan.

 

He is hurtling out of the atmosphere as the earth burns in flames just seconds after. His heart shrinks into his chest and he is bracing for the impact, though the shattering jars him regardless, mushing his insides to pudding.

 

“Why?”

 

Clarke wasn’t impulsive…could she love him? The thought makes Bellamy sick, bile rising in his throat and closing his airways.

 

“Politics.” She gives a mirthless laugh “I wanted you to know, before we make it official.”

 

_I left her behind_

 

_I found her_

 

_She is leaving me_

 

 

“Whatever makes you happy Clarke.” He can’t fake a smile, his heart hemorrhaging ice.

 

“I have to get back.” He stands in a daze, feeling the solid land slip between his feet, and he stumbles forward as though wading through a nightmare.

 

Bellamy can’t risk a glance back, he can’t bear to see her broken expression, shoulders slumped, head down. His arms ache to hold her, his legs yearn to turn around and run to her. Most painfully of all, he begs to reverse time.

 

He heads for the trees.

 

\--

 

 A half empty bottle of Jasper’s infamous moonshine sloshes at his feet. He dug it out of Jasper’s hidden stash, praising the stoned kid’s efforts to make earth a little more fun, or at least a little more bearable.

 

Jasper had wasted away after Maya’s death, pursuing self-destruction, with arms outstretched and a grin on his face. He had welcomed the cliff, let go of the living, and fallen into the abyss.

 

Bellamy shivers at the thought, flicking drops of hazy rain from his hair. He wouldn’t end up like Jasper, he couldn’t, he had too many people dependent on him. The Blakes are not quitters.

 

Yet the broken parts of his heart whisper into the darkest depths of his mind, torturing him that the inevitable would be far worse than Jasper’s plunge.

 

It would be a slow decline, a brittle thread spun long by the cruel fates. Tantalus had spent eternity on the brink of starvation, an apple just out of reach dangling above his head.

 

Clarke is alive, against all odds, and a breath away.

 

They might as well have been separated by the heavens once more, Bellamy spiraling in pieces around distant stars, Clarke buried in a sepulcher of spiteful earth.

 

He would wake every day with thoughts of her, only to roll over and find the bed empty at his side. She would be a hole in his chest until his heart withered from the disappointment.  He would drift like a glacier on the frigid sea, remote, and would shrink to a husk of a man.

 

There is an old Greek legend, that Zeus created the first humans as beasts with two heads, four arms, and four legs. Their power was so strong it threatened the throne of the gods, and so Zeus cast down a lightning bolt that split each into two. He scattered the halves across the globe, fearful that a bond amongst a pair would shake the heavens. And so the story of soulmates drew its first breath, the tragic tale of halves left to wander, desperate to reunite.

 

Bellamy had never believed in such a thing. In his experience, love is an hourglass. Brimming with glittering sand, an illusion of eternity, until each grain slips away until all that remains, is emptiness.

 

There is no denying chemistry had sparked between him and Clarke when they first met, butting heads and leaning on one another even though they swore up and down they could lead better alone.

 

Like the sketches on Clarke’s wall, his memories weave together a love story of tragedy. Each thread clicks into place until the tapestry blazes like a thousand suns.

 

_He needs Clarke because he loves her._

 

The realization renders him breathless, clutching at his chest as his heart erupts in ragged gasps.

 

He had known, of course he had always known. Each time he brushed her hair from her clear blue eyes, how he paced at night, unable to sleep until she returned from a mission. The innocent touches and burning glances.

 

Six years not knowing if she was living or dead, if her corpse blackened in Praimfaya. Those agonizing six years were his punishment, his cross to bear for the many, many sins he had committed and the people he had wronged. Those six years weakened him to his knees, the mountain on his shoulders a hissing morph of snarling faces, dripping blood – the grounders he killed, the Mountain Men he destroyed, the hatred of his sister.

 

Bellamy needs the salvation of an angel, but she has spread her tattered wings and flown the roost.

 

He wouldn’t last another six years, hell he wouldn’t last _one._

 

With a scream he hurls the bottle at a tree, its piercing shatter lighting his nerves until he tears at his hair to relieve the bubble of pressure burgeoning in his lungs.

 

He hurls rocks and shouts at the thundering storm, rain driving the tears from his skin, chilling his shudders of heartbreak. He lashes at a tree, the rough bark tearing into his fists, warm blood rushing along the life-line of his palms.

 

Bellamy collapses, leaning against a boulder. His body begs for rest, but his mind rages and curses.

 

He brings his knuckles to his lips, tasting the metallic blood.

 

De ja vu crawls up his spine

 

_Do you want forgiveness? Fine. I forgive you. You are forgiven._

 

“I figured it was you.”

 

Echo melts from the twilight, her mouth grim, age lines stark against the flashing sky.

 

She keeps approaching, though Bellamy screws his eyes shut and urges her to go away.

 

“I take it you have heard the news.” Her voice is dangerously low, a sheet of ice layering her feelings of betrayal and foresight.

 

“Echo.” He slurs as he staggers upright. A piece of him flits about in panic at how he was going to explain _this_.

 

He had made a promise, and broken it.

 

Echo deserved better, Clarke deserved better. He is a drunken mess with blood on his hands and Death at his heels.

 

“I just, I just – ”

 

“Don’t.” the rain washes away the watery traces of her sorrow.

 

“Bellamy,” she straightens, chest puffed as though ready for battle “I’m leaving you.”

 

He blinks rain from his vision, and checks to see if the chasm in his heart has widened.

 

 

It hasn’t.

 

 

“Echo, I love you.”

 

 

“Not enough.” Fissures fracture her façade. She bows her head momentarily “What we had was a fling.”

 

“Five years, that’s not, it’s not, Echo, I –”

 

She plows on “You loved Clarke before me” her voice breaks “and you’ll love her after me.”

 

He scrambles for words, but grasps only air.

 

“Bellamy it’s not all your fault, I was lonely and in pain too. I don’t blame you, I don’t hate you. But I have been selfish before, this time though, _this time_ I am going to get it right.” She gives a defeated smile “don’t come after me in the name of chivalry, I won’t have it. It’s always been Clarke, it _has to be_ Clarke. I saw it in the mountain, the way you lit up at the sound of her voice on the radio. I saw it when we left her behind, and when you waited for her on the Ark. I am leaving you, because, because, I am not the right woman, and I won’t make you choose.”

 

He pulls her into a hug, though the relief is like a drug. The mountain on his shoulders crumbles, the cross splinters, and he breathes in the fresh, real air of a pure earth.

 

“I would choose you.” He murmurs against her hair, pushing down the wail of protest resounding from his heart.

 

“I know. But I won’t be anybody’s second, I deserve better.”

 

“Yes.” Bellamy plants a tender kiss on her forehead “You do, and, Echo.” He holds her at arm’s length, pouring his soul into his eyes “thank you.”

 


	16. Chapter 16

 

 

 _Hurry_. Her last words to him before he boarded the ship, leaving behind his heart with the woman he loved too late.

 

 _Hurry_.

 

“You are going to do something utterly stupid aren’t you?” Madi’s dancing grin belies her ridicule. “I guess I was right. Take Helios.”

 

The horse senses Bellamy’s exuberance, connecting his tired hooves to the man’s urgency. They dash across the scorched plains, dust coughing behind.

 

Sweat lathers the animal’s neck when Bellamy flings himself off the horse, giving Helios a pat before bolting down the stairs, taking two, three at a time.

 

 One Kru scatters out of his path as he charges down the bunker, coat flapping and heart pounding to the beat of a thousand war drums.

 

He slides to Abby’s door, rapping with rapid knocks.

 

“Bellamy?” she is quizzical, regarding the bedraggled and breathless man with slight suspicion.

 

“Clarke.” He gasps out.

 

Recognition flutters across her features and she smiles. The intensity that radiated from his body, the wildness in his eyes – it was _love_.

 

It was like the taste of fresh water, the feel of real earth and the sound of hearty laughter.

 

“Come in.” she steps aside “Girls,” Harper and Raven looked up, their giggles waning.

 

At the sight of Bellamy shock washes over their features.

 

“We were just leaving.” Abby hauls the two girls, still staring at a breathless Bellamy, out the door.

 

“Mom I need you to zip the…” Clarke trails off, her concern forgotten.

 

A wedding dress, nearing 150 years with its tarnished white palette, fits to Clarke’s curves. The neckline scoops low, diamonds studding the corseted waist before the skirt flares over her hips and wraps around her legs in a mermaid-esque design.

 

The euphoria is eclipsed by nervousness, butterflies pounding in Bellamy’s chest.

 

He swallows “Clarke…”

 

It is husky, full of yearning and intoxicated with desire.

 

She wants to close her eyes and bask in its heat.

 

Her shoulders straighten and she hugs the dress tighter “Bellamy, what are you doing here?”

 

“Marry me.” He sinks to his knees

 

The air is sucked from Clarke’s lungs, and the fear that lurks within her mind whispers this is a trick, an illusion.

 

A single sob escapes and she turns her back so he can’t witness her tears.

 

 

_It was too much to hope for_

 

 

His breathing quickens “Clarke.” Ships shatter against the rocks in his brown gaze “I love you.”

 

She is thrown back into the delirium of those first four years, where the walls shifted and the dead cackled in her ears. Up was down, cold was hot, and life became death.

 

“This isn’t real, I’m hallucinating again, God,” she presses the heels of her palms into her eyes, as though to drive sense back into her addled mind.

 

“I love you.” His hands grip hers, guiding her back to reality, back to him. “I left you behind once, but Clarke, I promise, _I promise_ I will never do that again.” He bows his head to her stomach, and she runs her fingers through his thick curls.

 

“I have loved you since, hell I don’t even know. I don’t know what we’ll do with One Kru, or Roan, or this whole god damned earth. But I do know one thing.” His eyes meet hers with the ferocity of passionate kiss “I am yours, Clarke Griffin.”

 

“Oh Bellamy.” The tears in her voice shine through the streaks that cry from her water-blue eyes.

 

He stands and presses his lips to their enjoined hands before holding it above his beating heart.

 

“Yes, yes!” the laughter mixes with crying “I love you Bellamy Blake.”

 

And she pulls him into a searing kiss.

 

Praimfaya was a mere spark compared to the roar of these flames.

 

He tastes the salt of her tears and the bliss on her lips and he finally believes in soulmates.

 

 

 

 

_"Love is the voice under all silences, the hope which has no opposite in fear; the strength so strong mere force is feebleness: the truth more first than sun, more last than star." — E.E. Cummings_


End file.
